Tech websites write a lot about Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, so it’s easy to feel a bit left out if you use Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 9 is easily the best version of Internet Explorer ever released, and it includes some cool features. If you’re an Internet Explorer user, here’s a collection of browser tips just for you.
Some of IE’s features are best-in-class. For example, IE’s pinned sites integrate well with Windows 7’s taskbar, and pinned sites offer more features than application shortcuts in Chrome. Web accelerators are also a useful way to view information from the current page, and they’re specific to IE.
Pin Websites To Your Taskbar
Pinned websites work in tandem with Windows 7’s taskbar. To pin a website, drag and drop its icon from Internet Explorer’s address bar to the Windows taskbar. You can click the taskbar icon to instantly load the website in its own window.
Some websites contain special support for the pinning feature. For example, if you use Hotmail, you’ll see a count of unread messages in your Hotmail inbox – right on your taskbar. You can also right-click the taskbar icon to view a jump list of special options.
Trim Add-ons For Speed
Many applications install Internet Explorer add-ons. If you have quite a few add-ons, Internet Explorer will take longer to start. Internet Explorer identifies the add-ons that delay your browser and tell you how much they delay IE’s startup, so you can easily disable the worst offenders.
To open the Manage Add-ons dialog, click the gear-shaped Tools icon on IE’s toolbar and select Manage add-ons.
Enable Accelerators
Internet Explorer includes web accelerators for sending emails with Hotmail, mapping addresses with Bing, and translating languages with Bing Translate. These accelerators may be disabled, depending on what you selected when you installed IE. You can enable them from the Accelerators pane in the Manage Add-ons window.
To use an accelerator, select some text on a web page and right click (or click the accelerator icon that appears). You’ll be able to get instant results directly from the webpage – for example, you can see an address on a map or translate some text without loading an entire new page.
To get more accelerators, click the Find More Accelerators link in the Manage Add-ons window or visit Microsoft’s IE add-ons gallery.
Lock Your Preferred Search Provider
Some Windows programs like changing your default search engine to their own, usually inferior, search engines. To stop applications from manipulating your browser settings, you can lock your preferred search provider in place – other applications won’t be able to change it without your permission.
To make this change, open the Manage Add-ons window, select Search Providers in the sidebar, and enable the Prevent programs from suggesting changes to my default search provider option.
Reopen Closed Tabs
Internet Explorer 7 brought browser tabs to Internet Explorer users, but it was missing a crucial feature – that ability to reopen closed tabs. Thankfully, this feature was introduced in IE 8. All you have to do is right-click IE’s tabs and select Reopen closed tab. You can also select from a list of recently closed tabs using the Recently closed tabs submenu.
Browse Privately With InPrivate Browsing
To enable private-browsing mode, click the gear icon, point to Safety, and select InPrivate Browsing. In InPrivate Browsing mode, Internet Explorer won’t save any history, cookies, or other temporary Internet files. You can browse privately, knowing that other people that open IE later won’t be able to see what websites you were viewing. It’s ideal when you want to surprise someone with a gift and in many other situations.
Get Website Suggestions
Internet Explorer can suggest websites you may be interested in based on websites you visit. It does this by sending a list of websites you visit to Microsoft’s servers – so make sure you’re okay with that before enabling this feature.
To enable this feature, click the gear icon, point to the File menu, and select Suggested Sites. You’ll also have to enable your favorites bar – right-click IE’s toolbar and select Favorites bar to enable it. Click the Suggested Sites option on your favorites bar to view similar websites.
If you don’t see the Suggested Sites option on your favorites bar, you can add it from here.
You can also tweak a lot of Internet Explorer settings from the Internet Options dialog, which also contains parental controls that let you block access to specific categories of websites.
For more Internet Explorer tips, check out our printable Internet Explorer Shortcuts cheat sheet.
What Internet Explorer feature do you make use of the most? Leave a comment and share any tips you have!
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i was using chrome for really long time, but lately i started notice more and more webpages that are not correctly displayed in chrome…. per example http://espnfc.com/us/en and it is strange because i wasn’t having much porblems previously, and i was using crome from first beta that was available….
and i am slowly returning back to ie… and i like ie specially ie10 in w8….
Looks okay in Chrome to me! The web’s come a long way from when it was IE only. I hear IE 10 is improved again.
on two computers at home and on a computer at work i cant open that page….
That’s really bizarre. Could be a region-blocking issue.. But then IE wouldn’t work. I’m stumped.
it’s an issue in chrome installation , i had the same with most sites using html5 just re-installed it and the issue is gone now. may work for you too
That’s a bizarre bug — worth a try, though.
I haven’t used IE in at least three years. Firefox has been my main browser, with Chrome gaining more browsing time each day. The new voice search within Chrome is the best!….
yeah, a few years ago i couldn’t even imagine using ie, but now… i use chrome only sometimes, and ff i left long time ago…. and with all google’s tracking and chrome getting strange with a number of pages… (try to open per example goal.com i chrome…) as i said i am returning slowly to ie….
I don’t use IE either, but I know many people do — in fact, an “average user” I know who still uses IE recently remarked to me that he discovered InPrivate Browsing. That inspired this post — there are still lots of IE users and we don’t write for them very much.
They only use IE (majorly) because it is shipped with OS
to think most Pcs with Xp still use IE 6(not sure on the version but they rarely update the browser) at-least that’s what it’s like here in india
Very true. It’s sad that IE 6 is still in such wide use — poor web developers. And users.
they must block ie 6-9(sexual pun unintended) over the web
The absolute best trick for iE users is download Firefox or Chromium
I was thinking the same thing. I thought for sure this article was going to be a list of browsers to download with IE to replace it.
or download opera
While I have never been a huge IE fan, IE 9 is actually a pretty good browser. Certainly leaps and bounds better than IE 6, 7 & even 8. It still has its quirks, but honestly, I don’t mind using it when I have to.
IE 9 is definitely no IE 6, at least.
Haha, I might personally agree, but I certainly don’t want to troll my readers!
good point ? though IE still is the only browser you get out-of-the-box on windows machines
“Trim add-ons for speed.” Cool, now I’ll be able to download Chrome even faster!
Well, that way, whenever you accidentally launch IE, it won’t take as long to close it.
IE is the best browser for Windows users…
Why do you say that?
because you can download chrome & ff with it ???
Swoosh!
Give the most useful trick ” uninstall IE completely :
Sadly, you can’t. The uninstall option in Windows just hides it.
Maybe it’s the way I use IE. I don’t know why and how. My IE always has many problems. It cannot bring out my online bank client every time I try to pay.However I use the IE engine in Avant browser to do that. Avant use IE’s engine directly. I don’t understand…
And there are so many script errors when I surf the internet.I cannot post comments. All the other browsers I used have no problem.
These things makes me think IE is terrible.
Sounds like you’ve got some problems there, tough to say why — try upgrading to a newer version, maybe? Or uninstall junky add-ons and toolbars.
IE is Seriously gaining some momentum to catch up with Chrome and Firefox.I Have used Chrome and Firefox for many years and found them to be extraordinary.We will see how the upcoming IE10 shines in Windows 8
IE may not be quite there yet — it’s missing a lot of HTML5 features, although some seem to be coming in IE 10 — but it’s not an embarrassment to Microsoft anymore. IE 6 was an embarrassment.
thanks for this amazing list…..
The best tip was left out, use anything but Internet Explorer. Use Internet explorer only for websites that dont work correctly with another browser.
That’s not very many websites these days, thankfully!
Some people are restricted to IE only at work, so this could still help some Chrome/Firefox fans.
Chrome beets this
Agreed, I personally use Chrome.
not used ie since
use google chrome for first time
time to give it a try
What did you think of IE?
I’m still a Google Chrome user myself, but even I have to admit that IE is better than it used to be.
IE learned a lot from its failures
but still at many web sites chrome is much better & responsive
IE still lacks many html5 features
might get it done in IE10 in windows 8
to me
IE has done something to remove the tag of
“the best browser to download other browser”
Yeah, the lacking HTML features are a big problem. Probably the biggest one with IE.
“Better than it used to be” doesn’t say much.
Alternate between FF, Chrome, and Chromium depending what machine I’m on, and what I want to do. FF extensions are great, but FF is getting a little bloated
I agree, but IE still has users. Actually, I’ve been fighting with IE’s non-standard rendering this afternoon. So I know it’s still not good enough.
Cool!
Some people actually use IE ? Seriously ?
Yup. If you add all the IE versions up, it’s either ahead of or roughly equal to Chrome, depending on who you ask. Poor web developers.
IE9 brought me back to it from Chrome by the the ‘Pin Websites to your Taskbar’ feature. That is a real winner for me. Also, in the last few days, IE9 has mysteriously been loading pages faster than Chrome. Weird!
That is a very slick feature. Chrome has the same feature (wrench menu->Tools->Create Application Shortcuts), but it’s a few more steps and not as discoverable.
The pinning a web page to the taskbar feature is fantastic.
I agree. Other browsers need to copy that, post-haste — I know Chrome has it, but make it easier! Average users don’t know about it.
I never liked IE, slow start up and bloated! But still there are some people who keep using IE that makes us web developers life hard! Firefox or Chrome FTW!
Sadly, IE 9 looks modern for the average user but isn’t quite there for web developers yet.
I seldom use IE but I it is installed in my pc. This will be bookmarked for future reference.
Awesome, glad we could be a resource! I wasn’t even aware IE had some of these features before writing this post.
i dont like ie 9. no good html 5 support.
Yeah, hopefully IE 10 will be better — I have a gut feeling that the support still may not be good enough, though.
Hmmm, Thanks for sharing…
Nooooo… IE 9 really sucks, most of my browser extensions are not loading properly and sometimes IE crashes and says page expired. But same working fine in firefox & chrome… even it looks opera is far more better than IE now a days.
Yeah — to be honest, IE has come a long ways but it’s still at the back of the pack in my book.
IE? Really?
who still use this cr*p these days?
A few people still do simply because it is available by default.
Yeah, that’s right..
so the very first useful tip and trick for IE users should be:
“go to firefox or chrome or opera website, download the browser and install it.”
and second:
“leave IE for eternity. Hurray!!”
20-30% of Internet users (or more!) depending on the browser statistics you see.
once I install IE9 on my windows 7 I almost lost my IE! nothing work and IE keep shutting down … I didn’t try it anymore and start chrome instead. But my coworkers use it and are satisfy.
choosing between browser is kinda difficult but since most people use windows they get to use IE , beside that I saw a lot of app that are compatible with IE only.so useing IE is a must and this kind of tips are really useful.
HATE Internet Explorer 9
I have been trying now for two days to rollback to ie8. Ie9 is supposed to show as an UPDATE, View Installed Updates is what I have been reading. That said, on my computer, Vista 32-bit, internet explorer 9 is NO where to be found! NOT happy with the new lay out. I have tried a restore, nada!
If you select View Installed Updates and look under the Microsoft Windows category, you should see “Windows Internet Explorer 9,” which you can uninstall. You can also use the search box in the window to search for “Internet Explorer 9″ and uninstall it (at least on Windows 7).
You can also try Firefox, Chrome, or another browser.
it feels great in using it just a proper ad blocker adon and a extension like download helper will do the rest
I reecently received an Adobe Reader update and did not unselect the option to install Chrome and Google Toolbar. After the update, I uninstalled Chrome and Google Toolbar via the Control Panel [Programs and Features]. Since then I cannot jump from other applications to IE by clicking on embedded URLs [for example, URL embedded in an Outlook email, or embedded in a Word document]. I get a pop-up stating: “This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator.”.
I am using IE9 with Win7 64-bit. IE9 is my default browser. I’m sure this problem has something to do with the Chrome installation/deinstallation.
Do you have any suggestions regarding what option/parameter I need to reset?
Thanks,
If you’re still having this problem, try asking on MakeUseOf Answers: http://www.makeuseof.com/answers/
How can I stop Bing from changing my home page to BING?
What browser are you using and do you have Bing search bar or anything?
In Internet Explorer 9:
Click the gear icon at the top right corner of the window and select Manage add-ons.
Click Search Providers in the window that appears.
Select the search engine you want to use in the list (eg. Google).
Click Make Default to make the search engine your default.
Check the “Prevent programs from suggesting changes to my default search provider” checkbox at the bottom of the window.
If you don’t see the search engine you want to use in the list, click Find more search providers at the bottom of the window.